


Not Angry

by smallredboy



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Character Study, Foreman Sweetie I'm So Sorry, Gen, Me Being Salty At Canon, Microaggressions, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 04:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Foreman doesn't want to be who House wants him to be.





	Not Angry

**Author's Note:**

> i have Feelings about Foreman.
> 
> for fandomweekly with the prompt "stereotype".
> 
> enjoy!

Foreman tries not to show it, but he gets angry.

At House, at Cameron, at Chase. But mostly at House— perhaps because he lives on making him angry, so he’s a walking stereotype, so he’s the angry Black man he’s tried his whole life to not emulate. He nods half-heartedly, tries to not get into arguments and bites his tongue whenever House makes a racist joke no one laughs at.

Being angry is a privilege he rarely lets himself have.

After the events with his brain injury, he learns to take care of himself better. He values life more after being so close to death— and he stops getting in so many arguments with House about their patients, about their private lives, about anything at all.

“I’ll drop the N-bomb if I have to,” House says with a twitch of his nose.

He sighs and grabs one of the papers he’s looking for. “You’re addicted to conflict.”

And he’s  _ tired  _ of conflict. He doesn’t want to argue with his lazy, racist white boss day in and day out. He wants some peace of mind— he wants Chase to stop snickering a few feet away from him whenever House says something racist, he wants Cameron to stop ignoring it as she goes on about oh how much she cares about people and how much she loves people. Yeah, right. As long as they aren’t like him.

House has always tried to get him to be a stereotype, too. He’s felt it since day one, ever since he got hired and House quickly brought up his only charge on car theft (which happened when he was a teenager, anyways, it barely mattered now even as he still thought about it sometimes) and got him to break on somebody’s house. 

“You really have never done drugs?” Cameron asked him once as they looked for samples at a patient’s place.

He had sighed— he had seen the question coming light years ago. “Now  _ this  _ is going to be a racial thing,” he had deadpanned.

Because it was. It had always had been, and it would always be a racial thing.

A few years later, he left House’s team and came back when everyone considered him tainted. Everyone thought working for House for three years had ruined him, somehow. His abilities, his moral compass, everything is somehow tainted by the fact he worked for an asshole of a white man. It’s not like the racism, the jokes stopped once he got out of House’s line of sight, either. House isn’t the only source of all things evil in the world, although it seems like it’s that way sometimes.

And there’s people fighting for a position under House. Which is funny, especially when two of the people who stayed after the first barrage of people living are men of color; one Black, one Indian.

Kutner stays in the definitive team, and Foreman and him become friends of a sort. 

“He’s not as racist with you now, is he?” Foreman asks him over drinks at a bar, taking a sip of wine.

Kutner laughs a little. “Oh, not really, no. You got the short end of the stick on that one, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “It’s— a trip. I wish he would just shut the fuck up sometimes.”

“Dude, me too,” Kutner agrees after downing some beer. “Whenever he made a racist joke at Cole we would just share the look. You know the one.”

“The look is a survival mechanism,” Foreman says and Kutner laughs loudly, slamming his hand down on his thigh. “It is! You need to just, like, bond with the other people of color in the room. Otherwise you’re dead meat.”

“Yeah!” Kutner agrees. “It sucks that Cole doesn’t talk to me much anymore. At least I’ve got you. We’ve got to stick together here with… House being shit and all. He’s fun apart from that, though.”

Foreman snorts. “He really isn’t. Don’t suck up to the white man.”

“He’s  _ decent  _ apart from that,” Kutner tries.

Foreman laughs and hits his shoulder playfully. “You’re a lost cause. I’m blaming your white parents.” He finishes his wine and stands up. “I’ve gotta go now.”

“My parents are great, as white as they are,” Kutner replies, pouting a little. “See ya, Foreman.”

Foreman waves as he leaves. It really is a survival mechanism, he can’t help but think, to be around other people of color.

  
  



End file.
